


Greenogance

by huricihan



Category: Transformers: Cyberverse
Genre: Alien/Human Relationships, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Eventual Romance, F/M, Hate to Love, Master/Servant (kinda), Past Character Death, Possessive Behavior, Slow Romance, Transformers - Freeform, Violence, Xenophilia, past trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25228132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huricihan/pseuds/huricihan
Summary: In 2076 Earth got invaded by the aliens known as cybertronians. The humanity got crushed under them and the last free people are considered to be only the members of the Black Underground - a human resistance that strives to reclaim their home by creating new weapons.Amanda, one of the young engineers, minds her own business when suddenly her lab is attacked by a group of cybertronians. the biggest surprise to her is, that instead of getting killed or tortured she is offered to work for the enemy. During her stay there she is working under the watchful eye of a certain, mostly green and annoying cybertronian - Crosshairs. But first impressions can be deceiving and in time Amanda finds herself questioning her true loyalties.
Relationships: Crosshairs (Transformers)/Original Character(s), Cybertronian/Original female character
Kudos: 6





	1. The future world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to everyone!  
> This is my first published story and I wrote it as a gift for my friend who really loves Transformers universe, especially she has a soft spot for Crosshairs.  
> English is not a native language to me so I apologize for mistakes in advance!  
> Feel free to leve a comment if ya feel like it, but most importantly - enjoy the story!!!

The world had changed a long time ago...

Once the streets were filled with different sorts of transports, people were rushing to their workplaces early in the morning, while their children attended school. In those days it was more 'lively' everywhere, bot now there was only hard, cold metal. Eight years ago, in 2076, a mass cybertronian invasion pushed humans downwards from the food chain and since that day machines dominate planet Earth.

Just don't get the wrong idea, they didn't go entirely extinct, instead they were held as slaves and black workers that produced and harvested metal. Only few hundreds escaped the slavery and hid in safehouses and other 'outlaw' centers, however, upon their discoverment there could be only one punishment for such a disobedience - death.

Once our last hope had been the Autobots - a group of cybertronian warriors that defended humans from their own brothers-in-arms...atleast until our race decided to kill them one by one, until only a handful of them were left...in hiding. Is it any wonder that they were done with humans?

When their cybertronian kinsmen arrived, Autobots were hailed as heroes that had survived a mass genocide, as were the decepticons; furthermore both groups reconciled.

Now, in 2084, a rebellion is planned by the human resistance organization known as the "Black Underground". Their leader is a person that goes by the name "Rougue prince", who is ready for great sacrifices in order to restore humanity to its glory days...

It was around two in the afternoon and Amanda (as usual) sat in her lab and engineered new tech for the upcoming rebellion. Her friend and confidant Eva visited frequently to share her own ideas and sometimes both worked on their favorite weapon - the flamethrower. It took them months to find the right 'ingredients' to create a flame so hot that it would easily melt those metal - fleshed creatures.

Amanda was reaching for Mendeleev's periodic table when a sharp metal touched her back. "Aaaaaaaaah..."she screamed as she turned around, but sighed in relief when she saw her lab rat partner of a friend Eva with a sharp metal rod in hand. "Yeah, yeah, really funny, ya know." Amanda pouted in annoyance whilst Eva was holding her stomach from laughing her ass off. "You should...you...you should've seen your face..."Eva managed to choke out between her hysteric laughter.

Her friend's childish behavior made sad memories surface in Amanda's mind - the school, their classmates, their teachers, their friends - it was so hard to believe that the events from three years ago seemed like only yesterday. _Amanda.Amanda_. "Amanda! Are you listening?" Eva called out with a motherly concern, breaking Amanda out of thoughts and took a deep breath. Seeing that Amanda's attention was back Eva tried again "I said that I didn't mean to remind you of that day, truly that was not my intention at all. I just wanted you to stop doing this stuff for, at the very least, a minute or two." Eva explained.

Amanda only offered a skew smile "Nah, it's fine. I'm used to this whole thing by now" she assured with a hint of sadness in her tone.

Eva did the most reasonable thing she could think of in this situation - give a warm hug to her only friend, when suddenly **BOOM**! The wall on their left exploded and both girls went flying in different directions. Eva was knocked unconscious in a near - by wall, while Amanda managed to force her upper bodyhalf upwards. It took her two seconds to adjust her glasses and see the mixture of red, blue, yellow and green before being knocked out by a falling piece of the ceiling.

Amanda woke up due to an uncomfortable, worn-out couch under her, but as soon as she rose, a disgusting throb pierced through her brain, making her deeply regret the action.

In the next ten minutes she tried to recall the last bits of memory from the past events until she was disturbed by a rough voice, "So, you, ve decided to live after all". An arrogant - looking, green cybertronian was leaning against the wall in a surprising 'human sized' form rather than the usual huge robot.

In any case, he still reached a height of around1.75 meters, which was a lot taller than Amanda's own height of 1.60 meters.

The girl slowly rose up onto her feet to inspect her surroundings, but the guy spoke again - "I actually thought that yer head would be bashed inwards after I threw that cogwheel at ya; guess I was wrong about ya doll face".

Amanda could only throw death glares at him. One thing's for sure - if I'll have to spend the rest of my life with this piece of scrap as his work slave, my life won't be that long, Amanda silently thought to herself all the while not droping her gaze from the cybertronian for a mere second.


	2. The Broken

After some ten more torturous slow - passing minutes Amanda was done checking out her surroundings and she couldn't keep quiet any longer, "Are you just going to keep staring at me or will something happen? This silence is getting on my nerves!" she blurted out.

Her outburst clearly amused her green cybertronian caretaker, "Would ya rather prefer wasting yer days away at some labouring camp until there's nothing left of ya but bone n dust?" Amanda frowned at his nasty tone, her face now wrinkled with disgust. She took a deep breath and mustered up some courage in order to not appear as week and pathetic as she felt right now, "Just to make it clear for you, I'd rather sit in the deepest, darkest dungeon filled with rats and spiders, than indure your arrogant, nerve wrecking and utterly annoying presence for another cursed minute!" For a split second courage and adrenaline filled Amanda's veins, _a split second_.

The cybertronian's facial plates twisted and he slowly began to move at Amanda's direction, "Don't get ahead of yerself dollface! As for yer prefered place of residence, I must inform ya, that there are no dungeons here. My fellow kinsmen recently made it clear that we keep no prisoners - only trophies. In regards to that ya better cut down the volume of yer voice box!" His threats definitely left a mark on Amanda, since she felt her insides twist and turn, though she was self - conscious enough to not show it.

Crosshairs smirked to his small victory, "As much as I'd love to educate ya, I'll give a piece of an advice instead - don't crackle out too much and don't drive unnecessary attention, cause believe me when I say that it'll lead ya to nowhere". After hearing his warning, Amanda lowered her head in defeat.

Shortly after that she was following the cybertronian's lead until they reached a place, which resembled a living room. Upon her entry all optics were suddenly turned towards her, adding an extra pressure to her already nervous frame.

She lifted up her head and glanced around. Her eyes widened, seeing that each and every present cybertronian in the room was in a rather tall human height, just like her green, arrogant companion.

On the couch was seated a yellow cycertronian and right next to him sat another one with black coloring and a bit of orange on few spots. On her left, leaning against the wall was another one, who was covered in camouflage - green color, whilst on her right stood a red samurai - looking cybertronian. Right in front of and the furthest from her stood the tallest (probably 2 meters in height) cybertronian, who's colorings were a mixture of red and blue. He stood with his back turned towards Amanda, but the sight of him alone shouted dominance and leadership, unless there was an even bigger individual hiding somewhere in the shadows.

"Are you an engineer?" the leader acknowledged her with a deep low voice, his back still facing her, yet his voice alone was able to suck out what little courage Amanda had left. Taking in green arrogance's earlier words, she only muttered a quick _yes_ and kept pretending to be invisible. "Good!" the leader finally turned around and faced her, his rough manner made Amanda wince. "It appears that you'll be of some use to us then" he continued. His tone left a bitter taste in Amanda's mouth, but she again thought to better mask her emotions rather than revealing them.

The leader continued his monologue in which he revealed a task for each of the present cybertronians (thus Amanda also learned the names of each cybertronian) - Bumblebee (the yellow one) and Hot Rod (the black and orange one) were tasked to get in touch with another cybertronian called Megatron, whilst the Hound (green camouflage) and Drift (the red samurai) were tasked of keeping watch and patrolling outside their residence. Finally came green arrogance's turn, who's name Amanda learned to be Crosshairs, was tasked of keeping watch over their _captive_. _Isn't it just lovely?_ \- Amanda thought to herself in a full scale sarcasm.

The cybertronians went to their respective assignments, including the blue - red leader, whose name was still a mystery to her. "Optimus Prime" Crosshairs announced from behind her. Amanda turned around with confusion written all over her. "The big guy, the one with red and blue colorings, he's called Optimus Prime, though we mainly call him Optimus" Crosshairs explained to clear some of Amanda's confusion away, but she still had some questions that were unanswered.

Crosshairs huffed, before unnecessarily clearing his throat, "Let me explain yer position over here dollface. We've gotta loads of new freshly - made technology, as ya humans call it, from the very same lab ya worked at only few days ago. Yer job will be to write down a full report on each and every one of em and hand it all to me. Also, ya will have to write down all intel that ya have on Rogue prince. However, I take yer three - day knockout to note and thus ya get to work when yer able to".

Amanda nodded to everything in agreement and followed Crosshairs again. Whilst the walked to her newly given _personal room_ , Amanda was thinking long and hard about Optimus. She kept repeating the name to herself over and over again, desperately trying to remember from where she had heard it. Optimus. Optimus. Optimus Prime. To her disappointment, the only thing she got to remember was how the headache from few hours ago felt like, since all this thinking made her head ache.

Crosshairs led her into a doorless space, "Welcome to yer new home dollface!" he happily announced and awaited for her to step in. The room was organized as a large bedroom that held plenty of space. There was a large bed, that could definitly fit Optimus and Bumblebee in it. Unfortunatly there were no windows, however, the lighting was good enough for her. There was also a large closet on the other side of the room with an even larger mirror on the wall to the wall from the closet. A few book - filled shelves, a work table and a chair filled up another space, leaving the rest for easy movement.

"Is this to yer liking dollface? This is the closest ya can get to yer human privacy" Crosshairs sneered from his spot. "The name's Amanda!" she hastily reproved, a bit too harsh for her own taste, but even if it offended Crosshairs, he didn't mind it.

With one final glance Crosshairs was about to leave, but was stopped by Amanda's voice, "Wait! I..." she trailed off to make sure that it was ok with the cybertronian who turned his full attention towards Amanda, allowing her to continue, "Optimus Prime - I thought that I've heard that name from somewhere. I couldn't at first remember from where, but now I do" she stopped to glance at her feet, before again meeting cybertronian's optics, "he was the leader of Autobots and they used to protect us…until the other’s came and they decided to turn against us” Amanda finished bitterly. The very same last line made Crosshairs snort “Protect eh? So now yall demand protection, now that the skies are rainin’ fires upon ya?” his voice was dripping with sarcasm – filled venom. “And why exactly should we protect the one race that murdered our brothers and sisters as if they were nothing more than a resource to build whatever new technology yall desired? We were all hunted for years and even in hiding our leader Optimus didn’t lost hope in his spark, that there’s some good in ya. But, as he admitted himself – he was a fool to even dare hope for such a thing” the harshness of his voice felt like a sandpaper on her skin.

“There is no such thing as Autobots or Decepticons any more, only the Broken – a flock of cybertronians that survived a mass genocide. And if by any chance ya hope that a giant robot will come over and start liberating, don’t bother to wait”.

Crosshairs optics were now boring holes into Amanda’s own eyes. “Rest up dollface…” – “Amanda!” she cut him off before he could finish the sentence. As daring as her outburst seemed to her, Crosshairs didn’t bother to even finish the sentence, instead he walked over to the exit, until he was again stopped by her voice, “If you are so scared and vulnerable in contact with humans, why do all of you have reduced your sizes to match ours? How are you able to do that anyway?” Amanda changed her tone from sarcastic to plain, so to appear casually interested in the matter, nevertheless the cybertronian picked up her desire and thirst for knowledge – an allowance to plaster another arrogant smirk on his facial plates.

“Yer first question doesn’t even require asking since it’s only logical that we all live in yer old holes, so that we wouldn’t have to waste time building new ones. Just don’t get the wrong idea – for now all the metal that is harvested by slaves is mainly used for ships and weapons and whenever we have enough, we’ll start building new homes on the foundations of yer old ones. As for yer second question, well…” he paused to think of a way hoe to better explain it so that the girl would get some clue of it, “To put it simply, it’s something like an incomplete transmutation, when one thing can change into another.”

Amanda mouthed an ‘o’ shape, signalizing that she understands.

Crosshairs continued on with the exit, but before that he threw her one last smirk and only then left her completely alone.

Amanda sighed heavily and dropped her body onto the soft bed. For now, there would be no escape and she decided to focus more on getting rid of the continuous headaches and surviving the company of _green–o-gance_.


	3. Old friends

For the next week Amanda was bored near to death since she had to stay in _her room_ all day. Now and then Crosshairs a.k.a Greenogance (short for green arrogance), as she had grown to think of him, would bring her food bars about thrice a day.

So far she had inspected the room a billion times, finding clean clothing, some beauty products, toiletries and (luckily) also some books. In her bed-ridden regime books were her only excitement and thankfully they were interesting and thick enough to kill her time.

For today Amanda fancied pink shorts, a white crop top and fluffy white socks with sparkling silver hearts on them. She was sitting on her bed and leaning on a pile of pillows and blankets. In her hands layed "Frankenstein" - her current _love interest_.

Amanda heard someone entering the room, but looking up was most surprised to see Optimus instead of Greenogance. She closed her book and pushed it on top of a nearby nightstand. Her mind lingered about a question she had silently brought up to herself during her resting period, and Optimus was a perfect individual to answer it.

"Optimus, I was wondering....no I need to know...I meant _ask_ you something." she tangled out in a desperate voice. Optimus focused his whole attention to the femme in front of him and Amanda took it as a sign to continue. "Back then when you attacked me at the lab, there was another girl with me, Eva. I need to know what happened to my friend! Is she here? Is she ok?".

Optimus fell into a stony silence and thought for a moment before answering. "Back then our mission was to take out that lab, because according to our resources it was the largest weaponry facility working for the Rogue prince and it was suspected that he'd be there, which in turn leads me to the reason why I'm here." he paused for a moment. "I want you to tell me where is Rogue prince! Where is he hiding? He was supposed to be there at that time, but he wasn't, why?"

Dissatisfaction brushed over Amanda's face, "That wasn't exactly an answer to my question" she muttered back.

"I never promised that I'd answer it, but you _will_ answer to _my_ question!" Optimus demanded.

Amanda threw a hateful, yet defeated look, before giving an answer "I only know that he was supposed to pay a visit to the lab to check the newest technology, but a specific time wasn't given to us" she answered truthfully.

"Very well then! I don't trust your species anymore, but I trust that you told me the truth." he proudly announced and turned out to leave, but Amanda stopped him, "Please wait! Do you know where's my friend? Is she alright, or at the very least alive?" tears were starting to fall from her eyes as she began to fear about her friend's death. Again she remembered the bloody classroom, the disfigured corpses of her classmates and teachers, the screams of running students...

Her sobbing took an effect on Optimus, as he stopped in his tracks and turned around to face the girl. His expression was unreadable, but he did seem to take a pity on Amanda, "I can't tell you for sure that she's alive, but it's most likely that she is since she can give huge intel on your technology, especially on weapons to use against cybertronians. You see, that day when we attacked the lab, it wasn't just us. The mission was also joined by Megatron, the former leader of Decepticons and the guard dog of queen Quintessa, along with what's left of his crew and Lockdown - the best hunter alive."

Amanda's eyes widened when she heard the name Megatron, for she had heard that he was one of the most cold-hearted cybertronians that exist. The thought of her best friend since junior years in the claws of Megatron almost made her gag and Optimus quickly picked up her worries, "She was taken by Lockdown..." 

"Aaaaaah, thank God!" Amanda interrupted him whilst sighting in relief, but soon enough her optimism was crushed. "I'm not sure whether it's better or worse that way. I know that Megatron is vicious, but Lockdown is something else. The thing that makes him so dangerous is, that his loyalties are hard to track - sometimes he's the greatest supporter of the queen, sometimes with some other bands, but mostly he's loyal only to himself. He is a bounty hunter and to him your friend is nothing more than a trophy, in other words you can consider her now as the spoils of war along with half of the technology that was stored at your lab.”

Amanda wasn’t sure whether her friend was lucky or unlucky to be the hostage of this Lockdown instead of Megatron. “Can I see her?” she questioned with a small spark of hope in her eyes, and again her hopes would be crushed into dust, left only for the wind to scatter them.

“I doubt you’ll ever see her again and for your own good I’d advise you to forget about her as soon as you can. Believe me when I say, that it’s better to forget now, rather than be destroyed by your emotions and attachment. It’ll eat at your heart like an acid, slowly and painfully – a long lasting torture you should avoid.” Optimus said before leaving her all alone again.

Amanda crushed her face in the pile of blankets and pillows, thus smothering the stream of tears and soaking the fabrics beneath. _How can I forget the one person who has saved me from my demise? Every time when I thought of giving up and ending everything, she always stretched out her hand to me for support. Not only once were there a time when back at the lab Eva helped me with tech, sometimes even gave me her own ideas, so that I could shine in front of others. She has always been so strong and brave, yet now when she is in her greatest need for help, I can’t return the favor_.

Her line of thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a metallic body leaning on the doorframe. _Damn you Greenogance_ , she whispered in annoyance to herself. But throwing her glance upon the cybertronian, she was surprised to see that he didn’t wore his signature smirk. Instead he was looking rather compassionate?!

“Don’t take his words too close to heart” Crosshairs announced in a rather calming manner.

Amanda glanced up to meet his optics, “What do you mean? And why all of a sudden you care about me that much?” she cursed herself in her mind for being so harsh with her words, but luckily Crosshairs didn’t mind. “I care because I’ve seen this situation before….only the unlucky one was Optimus.”

The mention of Optimus alone peaked Amanda’s interest by full 100%. Her gaze was fixated now fully on Crosshairs, allowing him to continue on with the story, “There was once a human boy, went by the name of Sam Witwicky, the first ever human whom we could consider a friend, someone who risked his life to save us. And for that his own kin executed him along with his family.” The information left Amanda speechless – how could they? To kill people, that is not humane, it can’t be true.

“Optimus had it the worst since he was the most attached to that human and soon enough he would repeat his mistake by getting attached to another one, though this time instead of a college kid it was a mechanic inventor or somethin like that, went by the name of Cade Yeager and guess what – he got picked out by his own as well, for the same reason as the kid.”

A million thoughts and scenarios passed through Amanda at that moment. She was still too shocked to comprehend the fact that two people were murdered by our own, because they had some relations to cybertronians.

Crosshairs by now was inside the room and sat down on an armchair near Amanda. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the good folks of yer species, it’s the fact that they’re of the weakest sort – always falling victim to yer sick government. That’s why most people never defended us, after those two, even if we were the innocent ones getting picked off one by one.”

She held a straight face and overthought everything Greenogance had just said. Never in a billion years she would’ve imagined that cybertronians would have a connection such as this with humans, no this close, not personal. Then again, when she thinks about the whole lab thing, back there they were nothing more than the slaves under cybertronians. All mechanics were working their asses off just so that this mysterious Rogue prince would be one step closer to saving humanity. Putting her work that way made her feel a bit sick in her stomach.

Crosshairs noticed that this particular piece of information greatly affected her and decided to not bother her any further. Instead he wore his Greenogance smirk, “Come on doll face, yer bedtime story is over and it’s time to put you in bed.”

_Wow, you really had to ruin the mood you damn Greenogance_ , she thought to herself with a smile and began to make a bedding for herself. 


	4. Work and distraction

The next morning marked Amanda's 15th day since the attack on her lab and the day of her capture. On the other hand, the first thing she heard was the announcement of Greenogance, "Time to get to work dollface!".

Her eyes were half lidded, her hair were a huge mess and there was still sleep in the corners of her eyes. To wake herself up faster, she stretched her limbs, making some of her bones crack. Next up was a quick freshening up at the bathroom, which was located near to her room. Instead of a quick shower though, she chose to wash her face and dry it up with a towel. Afterwards she returned to her room, where Greenogance was still waiting impatiently, and to annoy him even more Amanda decided to apply a moisturizing skin cream, pretended to have difficulties in choosing her outfit for the day, and lastly she re-did her hairstyle at least thrice.

By the time Amanda was ready to go, Crosshairs was annoyed to hell and a loud huff left his hard mouth, but nonetheless he didn't show any signs of his displeasure.

He led Amanda to the kitchen, where again she tried to annoy him by eating slow and taking her time whilst chewing on each bite of her food bar. But unfortunately she got bored of her games before her cybertronian _bodyguard_ did. She began to munch on her food bars faster, however, her dining came to stop when Drift entered the kitchen and informed Crosshairs, that Optimus was running low on his patience waiting for Amanda. As she rose she grabbed few more food bars, just in case if she'd get hungry before her next _food-break_.

Whilst walking side by side with the two cybertronians, she could feel them glance over her petite form now and then. Annoyed with the feeling, she decided to stare right back at Greenogance with a frown on her face, to which his facial plates twisted in that signature smirk of his. She turned back her head to look forward and silently a thought ran through her head - _I hope you run into a damn wall_! Though her curses were left only for deaf ears and a passing breeze to carry away.

They entered a large room, filled with hundreds of different shiny techs, few of them she was quick to recognize as they were her own masterpieces or the works of Eva. There were so many techs, that in a case where she didn't know better, the place could be easily mistaken for the main weapon storage of the Rogue prince himself.

Right besides one of the tables was standing Optimus himself with arms crossed on top of his metallic chest and his facial plates held a blank, unreadable expression.

"According to Drift your state is good enough for you to work, so I've decided to finally have you brought here." Optimus stated in his deep, rough vocals. "I want you to write a report about everyone of these weapons - what they are, how to use them, everything you know to the tiniest detail. There is no time limit or a specific amount of information you have to write on a daily basis, the importance is to have a good and detailed description, however, I suggest you do your job as you should, otherwise I'll be forced to fasten up your pace myself." It might not be a direct threat, but some of it for sure was there.

Amanda nodded in response and out of need to _say_ something.

“Oh, almost forgot to mention one last thing – for your _convenience_ I’ll leave Crosshairs here with you just in case if you’re in need of help or any other type of assistance. If you need any resources don’t be shy to ask him for it!” he said and walked out of the room.

As soon as Optimus left Amanda took another quick glance around, eyeing for a potential notepad or anything else where to record the information. “Lost already dollface?” Greenogance said as if reminding of his presence, however Amanda payed no mind to it and instead kept searching until she managed to find a paper notebook. Right after that she went to retrieve a pen from her room.

The reason why Amanda decided to write down the reports in a notebook was the fact that it resembled her homeworks from school, thus she was used to it and it may prove to be the fastest way to do her assignment. However, the main reason was rather that it would be easy to destroy the notebook and in case if someone were to attack this particular place, preferably the allies of the Rogue prince, it would only take a single swish of a match or a lighter and all her work would quite literally turn to ashes.

But foolproof plan out of the way, she had now a lot of work to do.

At first Amanda started with the technology she was most familiar with (that would be her own masterpieces and those who were built with her assistance) and began to scribe all the information down in the notebook.

Crosshairs had settled himself on a chair at the far corner of the room, his optics glued to Amanda’s alien frame, not dropping his gaze for a mere second. By now it should be clear to everyone, that it was his hobby to irritate the living hell out of the femme and make her uncomfortable. He couldn’t deny that it was fun for him to finally be around and up close to the opposite gender, even if it was a _mere human_.

In all his years spent on Earth he hadn’t really had the opportunity to spend significant amount of time with any femme – cybertronian or otherwise, and for some unknown reason, these kind of thoughts were plaguing him at this very moment.

Of course, there was some short while he spent with the triplet femme Autobots – Arcee, Elita-One and Chromia, though he was unsure of which one died before he joined and during the genocide, since to him they seemed all _too same_ to distinguish.

There was also Yeager’s daughter Tessa, however, the slightest idea he could dare to hope for was crushed by merely taking one glance on her over-protective father, who was _protecting_ his daughter from the opposite gender like a wild animal.

The most amusing thing about Amanda so far was her failed attempts to appear angry and threatening, and to Crosshairs it was worthwhile to waste his time away by stealing glances at her and making her face go red at times.

Crosshairs observed Amanda for hours without getting tired or bored from it, but the same couldn’t be said about her. He took note of her movements becoming slower and sloppier by every passing ten minutes, until she herself took a small note of it, but kept resisting the urge to stop her work (another amusement for Greenogance).

Amanda released a long sigh, closed the notebook and hooked the pen on the top of the front cover. She sat down on a nearby chair and rubbed her eyes – she was clearly exhausted. Unbeknownst to her it was already evening and since her breakfast she hasn’t touched any food, even those food bars she picked along from the breakfast were left at the same spot next to a tech, untouched. Though she more craved sleep rather than a full stomach.

Seeing her pathetic state, Crosshairs rose up from his seat and did something he could never imagine himself doing - he walked over to Amanda in a quick pace, picked her up in his cold arms and began to walk directly to her bedroom, picking up her food bars on the way.

Surprisingly (more like obviously) Amanda didn’t resist the act nor did she struggled against his chest, instead she wrapped her seemingly small hands around his neck and leaned into jis chest plates. She might’ve hear something like – _did ya actually had to overdo it_ – or something like that coming from Greenogance, but she didn’t care about anything else than sleep.

Crosshairs barely felt the light touch of her soft, pale flesh against his metallic-one, since his nerve system was a lot different from that of a human’s.

He carefully layed her down on her bed and dragged a blanket over her peacefully-looking body, with her chest rising and falling in a slow rhythmical sequence.

“Sleep tight dollface!” he whispered to her, before taking his leave. Unbeknownst to him Amanda could still hear him and process what he said, despites the fact that her eyes were closed and she was slowly falling asleep.

Greenogance’s last goodbye left Amanda dumbfounded and confused up to the point where she feared that her sleep session was over, however, she was too lazy to move a muscle and thinking only seemed to exhaust her more.

_Why are you so kind to me_? – she wondered. This act of kindness, especially from a cybertronian, was a feeling too foreign to her, yet she came to overthink everything she had encountered from the time spent at this base until she finally fell into the hands of the dream world.


	5. Ghosts and corpses of the past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter I've also decided to put some bits from the current state of Amanda's friend Eva, who got captured by the fearsome bounty hunter - Lockdown. Hope yall like it!

Explosion after explosion destroyed the school building, damaging the grounds surrounding it as well. The falling debris proved to be as deadly as the attacks landed from the robot aliens, as it crushed the fleshy humans under.

The screams of students resonated in every corner that was still intact. The sound was disgustingly disturbing and turned the horrendous views of destruction even darker. Amanda could easily pick up the stench of blood and death in the air, and it made her think twice before she took every deeper breath.

The long school corridors were littered with the carcasses of students, teachers and other unlucky souls, that were cursed to attend or visit school at that day.

the gruesome sightings caused Amanda to scream her throat out sore till she couldn't breathe any more. Tears were burning hot on her cheeks and washed out the dust from her eyes. At some point Amanda pressed her small hands over her ears to block the sound of screams, to keep some sanity within her. It didn't work, it wasn't enough.

Another explosion went off somewhere close to her, as more dust fell from the ceiling on Amanda's hair and that day's precisely picked outfit. A loud crack was what she heard next and for some reason she decided to look straight to the direction from which the cracking sound came. She turned her head upwards and gazed upon the ceiling. it was lined with multiple cracks and suddenly it came down falling upon her...

* * *

Amanda woke up with a loud scream and sweat trickling down her face. Her eyes were so wide opened, that it seemed they might pop out of their sockets. Her chest rose and fell quickly, due to the rapid breaths she inhaled.

The streams of tears were also present on her face, meaning that she probably cried whilst dreaming (not surprising). She dried up her face with her blanket and drew few circles on her temples.

Amanda turned her gaze onto the door, feeling a presence coming from that direction.

"What's wrong doll face? Did ya see a rat or somethin' ? if so, then I'd advise ya to get over it sooner than later. The place is full of em."

A few years ago Greenogance would've made a great impact on her with those words, as she wasn't fond of rats nor his self - centered views, but now she didn't feel like fighting back. Ever since she started her work with the tech reports one week ago, she has partially grown used to her new cybertronian companions.

In a way, it wouldn't be entirely right to say that Amanda hasn't gotten used to this new lifestyle. It was almost like a schedule for school - you rise up in the morning, have a shower and something to eat for breakfast. Then you get to work and get pauses to go to bathroom, which also serves as an opportunity to pick up some foodbars on the way back to the hall.

Crosshairs as her ever loyal assistant and provides help or materials when needed, though not without throwing out his sarcastic remarks, that seemed to be having no end. In her first three days it was annoying the living hell out of Amanda, but afterwards...it felt almost _pleasant_ , to hear his rough voice. However, at this very moment she didn't feel like having any of that. Not after seeing all the horror of her _last day at school_ all over again.

It didn't take long for Crosshairs to notice the sour mood of the femme and it ate at his spark to see her like this - quiet and yielding- a complete opposite to her usual self. He had to admit - it was more interesting to see her pouting like a youngling and barking back something to his sarcastic remarks, rather than this silent treatment.

Crosshairs huffed loudly and walked her way. With his better vision he easily noticed that there were redish blurs around her eyes, moreover she refused to meet his gaze.

Finally, his eyes were making Amanda uncomfortable so she spoke to avert his attention elsewhere. "No. I just had a nightmare, that's all". However, her plan failed miserably as Crosshairs didn't know what a nightmare was and Amanda didn't fancy telling him a high quality definition. "To put it simply - nightmares are sad, repressed memories, that tend to surface into my mind whilst I'm asleep and when I can't take it any more I manage to wake up" she did her best to explain.

"What are those sad memories about?" Crosshairs, to a great inconvenience for Amanda, continued on questioning. She was about to shoo him off, but considered that it might be helpful and relieving to get some weight off of her chest.

She turned her gaze towards his blue optics. “The whole thing is related to the tragedy of 2081. After the invasion in 2076 loads of institutions were shut down, but the schools remained. That is until 2081. Those three years ago I was supposed to graduate from school and enroll into university. That day I had a math exam and in my nervousness I prayed for it to be canceled and in the end it was…in its own twisted way”. She paused.

“As we all were walking to our assigned classroom, suddenly explosions went off one by one and…” by that point a lump had formed in Amanda’s throat which made it harder for her to speak. The last thing she wanted was to cry in his presence and show how weak and pathetic she was.

Amanda averted her gaze downwards and closed her eyes, as if trying to force the tears back. She failed to do that. Suddenly there was cold and light pressure on her right hand. A realization hit her that Greenogance was now holding her hand, offering some comfort. In a way it helped her regain her will and she continued.

“I will never forget the horrors I saw. Dead people were everywhere, each of them looking worse than the previous one. A cybertronian broke out a hole in our classroom’s wall and started to shoot my classmates one by one. I ducked just in time to avoid death, however, in exchange for my life I was forced to watch my classmates die. They screamed. The shouted. They begged. They fell down to the floor, motionless, lifeless corpses. I remember sitting in some corner, shocked and paralyzed. All hope seemed to be lost.” Amanda took a deep breath and allowed some oxygen to her brains.

“I was saved by my classmate Eva, who at the time wasn’t in the classroom, wasn’t exactly my bff or something at the time. She was just there and she didn’t turn her back on me – for that I’m indebted to her for as long as I live”. Some color began to return on her paled skin complexion.

“She got us to the underground, where we both have worked ever since. There we also learned, that the reason behind the attacks was, the fact that your leaders thought Rogue Prince to be working in schools and raising a rebel army from the students.”

Crosshairs could clearly remember those events, for he had also played a small role in it. He was the one who had participated in the attack planning – a fact that was unknown to most of his current teammates.

He clearly remembered feeling good about himself for helping out his kin against this _villainous_ species and even after the attack he had _convinced_ himself, that this was the way of war, which would eventually end. Now he wasn’t so sure anymore. Not after seeing how damaged Amanda was due to these past events that happened three full years ago.

Just by being near her shivering form Crosshairs could feel how terrible and disturbed her current state was. He was sure, that there was something he could do to make her feel better. A thought popped into his processor. “Listen up doll face!” he announced gently to gain her attention, but at the same time wouldn’t offend her. “Wait here for a bit, I’ll ask Drift to get ya something, for sleep.”

Crosshairs removed his hand from hers and got up to go and find Drift, but was stopped by Amanda’s desperate plea. “Crosshairs stop! Please. D-don’t go. Just… stay here, please, by my side. At least for a little…” she trailed off as if realizing what she had actually said and bent her head down in embarrassment.

His presence had felt so comforting, that she actually begged for him at this point, not wanting to be torn away from this soothing atmosphere.

Crosshairs stood still on his spot and shook his head, for he was now in a minor conflict with himself. He stopped thinking and instead marched back to the femme and layed down in bed besides her.

Any other time Amanda would’ve scrambled away, as she was feeling most uncomfortable being so close to a male (regardless whether it’s a human or cybertronian), but at this time peace and safety were her priorities, instead of the thought that she was accepting comforts from someone, who might’ve killed her own kin.

She thought of her actions as selfish, but that didn’t bother her the slightest. For so long she had been bothered by these ghosts and corpses of the past. She was tired of it. And if sleeping besides a God damn cybertronian was what she needed to get a good nights sleep, she was more than willing to comply.

* * *

The large ship took to the skies after a long and hard week on a solid foundation.

It wasn’t in Eva’s knowledge where they would go next, but one thing was guaranteed for their next stop – death.

It was clear to her that she had mixed up days a long time ago. Not that it mattered much whether she kept track on them or not, just a curiosity.

One thing Eva clearly remembered and would remember as long as she lives is the day, when the lab was attacked. The very same day when Eva was _locked up_ by Lockdown – a ruthless bounty hunter, who was more than happy to finally have a human traveling companion. Not to mention that this one was a femme.

For as long as she had remained on the ship, she had been _asked_ to write down intel on technologies, that were taken by Lockdown from the lab attack.

Most of her daytime was spent on writing and drawing. She ate her meals whilst working and her natural business had to be done quick, since time was very expensive to her. Every week Lockdown would check how much she had written. If he thought the amount of information to be less than his expectations, he had developed a habit of dragging his hook down Eva’s back, thus scarring her delicate flesh (not that he cared much for it).

During her sleeping hours, she sometimes trailed her thoughts back to her Mandy. Though if it was so, then only for a moment, cause soon enough she’d fall asleep. On most of the times as soon as her body contacted the bed, she fell asleep right away. Her sleeping hours weren’t many, so frequently she felt tired, but was smart enough to hide it.

Her first three weeks were the worst, since her body wasn’t used to such a regime, but later on she got more used to it. The only real problem she’d be faced with was the forever changing mood of her master Lockdown.

To this cybertronian she was a pet, a slave, a trophy. Definitely something of a lower class sapience and unworthy of his acknowledgement. Not that she cared much about it, as for a long time her priorities were a filled stomach and being left alone by Lockdown.

At some _extra lucky_ occasions, Eva could also get a steaming shower, but she knew better than to dress in her own given room, since she had noticed times ago that it was littered with hidden cameras. Eva wasn’t feeling like showing the good stuff to him or to any other of those freaks, although, if he’d see her naked, maybe she’d get something for it. _Hell will freeze over before I whore myself out to them_ , she once muttered as quietly as she could, for walls had ears around here.

Eva had been working on yet another report, when she was summoned to the control room. As most of the times when she saw him, also this time Lockdown was sitting in his chair, but this time something was off. Energon was dripping down from his chest and it was clear that he had been injured.

“Fix me up and do it quick. All the tools are over there” he pointed out to a nearby stand. Without wasting any time, she got to work. At first she quickly cleaned up the energon and stopped the dripping wounds. In the process she soaked her whole shirt in the green liquid, making her feel uncomfortable. As she continued her work, Eva got irritated by every passing second from the stained fabric clinging to her body.

At one point she had enough. Eva dropped the tools aside and with a swift movement pulled the shirt over her head, leaving her standing in a sports bra crop top. Picking up her tools, she restarted her work, without taking a note of Lockdowns piercing stare on her.

This was the first time in his life, when he was able to take measure of the femme’s body. In his orbs, she was a soft and fragile thing, unfit for this kind of an environment.

Eva finished her work and cleaned the tools, whilst Lockdown’s orbs still lingered on her frame. She went to pick up her shirt, but Lockdown stepped on it before she was able to reach it. “Leave it, there’s no use for it anymore. You should walk around like this more often - half naked and covered in filth. Suits you well enough”. Lockdown ridiculed her.

She swallowed the insults and left to her room. Only on the way there she suddenly realized, that part of those insults sounded more like compliments, which left her dumbstruck with confusion.

_God, I must be going crazy_ , Eva whispered to herself as soon as she entered her room.


	6. A diabolic twist

Amanda woke up on a certain hard, metal - chested cybertronian in the late hour of the morning.

"Mornin' dollface! Did ya sleep well?" Crosshairs greeted.

It took a minute for Amanda to realize her position, and as soon as all the right bells had rung, she shot up clutching the blanket tightly to her chest. She was shocked that Greenogance was the first thing she saw in the morning, however soon enough the events of the night flooded her memory and she became calm.

Crosshairs stared at her a bit confused. "Judging by yer pulse, steady breathing - more or less that is - few movements and no radiation level, I'm safe to assume, that ya didn't have any of those nightmares, as ya call em, inside yer head." he concluded aloud, thus replying to his own question. The act made Amanda smile and her cheeks tinted a light shade of red. Her reaction confused the Greenogance yet again.

"Ya know...I might have to reconsider that diagnosis, cause it's not a common thing that a captive is so happy in a prison or sleeping besides her jailor" said Greenogance.

The statement slowly deleted Amanda's smile. In a way he was right. She has enough meals and never goes hungry. She is treated well enough and not considered as a lower lifeform. And on top of that she gets Greenogance over here to be her _personal assistant_. "Aish, hell with it" Amanda desperately tried to surpass the surfacing of other thoughts about the arrogant cybertronian.

Crosshairs noticed the change of the femme’s mood. "Well it ain't that bad though. I mean, ya get food, yer own room with a lovely bed" he tapped the bed with his hand in notion. "No one is peeling yer flesh off of yer bones and the best thing so far (Amanda saw this coming) - ya get me as a companion, and now that's somethin most people don't get during their stay here" he finished.

Amanda snorted at him. "Oh don't be such a Greenogance about yourself. Acting like the king of the hill will get you nowhere, especially nowhere closer to me" the last part of her sentence definitely made Crosshair's processor to rethink about Amanda's words. 

"Why do ya assume that I'm getting close..."

"Nevermind that" she quickly cut in before the cybertronian could finish the sentence and got out to bed, her course set straight for the bathroom.

Afterwards she decided to have longer breakfast, than she usually had. Her mind was occupied by the thoughts of the _prison_ , in which she currently resided. In a way she felt bad for all those people who were working in the camps day and possibly even night. Then, as occasionally it happened, her thoughts lingered around Eva, and all the possible ways of how she _might_ be doing. Then she began to thought of herself being a _prisoner_ again, and so on her mind circled between the two subjects.

Though in her struggle between one thought or the other, she didn't wonder even for once about the school.

* * *

Memories of **that** morning seemed like only yesterday, even though four days had passed.

“Hey, Crosshairs” Amanda called out. “Please bring me that red notebook from right over there” she pointed to a table.

For some unknown reason the green cybertronian burst out in laughter and for good two minutes Amanda lurked at him from her spot, looking completely dumbstruck.

“What on earth is so funny about that sentence?” Amanda asked a bit angrily.

Crosshairs smirked at her. “It’s the first time I hear ya callin’ me by my name. I can’t recall whether there has been any other way ya refer to me as something else than Greenogance, which in fact is still a word that I don’t know the meaning of”.

His answer didn’t seem to satisfy Amanda, as she rose from her chair, stomped over to the table and picked up the red notebook herself, then returned to her spot and sat down, whilst all the time pretending as if Crosshairs wasn’t in this room.

She quickly went over the pages and tried to find a particular piece of tech, which had something in common with the tech she was currently writing a report on. She decided to take an example, so that it would be easier for her and take less time. However, luck wasn’t on her side, as the particular information wasn’t in this notebook.

She went to pick up another – the blue one this time, and again went back to her seat to inspect it. The information also wasn’t in this one.

Amanda huffed loudly to release some of the frustration, that was swelling up inside her. She rose and went to pick another one - this time the orange one, but again was met by the disappointment of finding nothing.

She growled and deliberately hit her head down against the table.

A sound of cybertronian’s movements rung in her ears, however Amanda payed it no mind. That is until something, like a pile of books, was thrown on the table, right besides her head. She looked up and saw that Greenogance had brought all of her notebooks straight to her.

_How was I so stupid to not think of it myself_ , she cursed at herself for her own stupidity.

“Check these out, whilst I’ll go to pick up the other two, that are currently with Optimus. I’ll talk to him, so that he can give them to ya for the day.” Sai Crosshairs.

She was so shocked by this kind of behavior, that she wasn’t able to utter a single word and only _woke up_ when he was gone. _Way to go dumbass_ , Amanda cursed herself **again**.

In about twenty minutes Amanda was done checking all of the notebooks, but unfortunately, she didn’t find what she was looking for. Even more unfortunate was the fact that in twenty minutes time Crosshairs hasn’t returned and now she was dealing with a dilemma of her life – should she go look for Crosshairs or write the report without the material.

“Isn’t this just wonderful?” she began talking to herself. Whilst only deciding on what to do next she spent another fifteen minutes. “Aish, to hell with him” she growled and began to draw some parts of the new tech and scribble down some text.

It all took her about half an hour to finally be fully done with this particular piece, however she didn’t feel enthusiastic to keep on writing. What annoyed her even more was the fact that Crosshairs **still** hasn’t returned.

Amanda decided to be done for the day with both the reports and Greenogance. She left this room and decided to grab something for a dinner before going to her room.

On her way to the kitchen she began to think about the progress in her life: from a student, to a rebel, to a captive, to a traitor…though was she really a traitor for doing this? After all she had to be useful to these aliens or otherwise she’d be dead, or worse – in a laboring camp. Yet it wasn’t fully so, that she was forced into working for them. In a way she was even glad to be helpful, for a moment, until she would again question her loyalties. What loyalties? The ones which got a frickin large cogwheel thrown at her.

For how long she’s been staying here was also a half – mystery, a month, two months, Amanda had already forgotten, for the days have been passing at a large speed.

It would be wrong to say that her days were similar to her. Yes, she did writing almost every day, save for the two free days she got every week, so that she could have a chance to rest, but thanks to Greenogance her days could hardly be thought of as similar.

Occasionally she’d also meet other cybertronians who were very curious about her and the tech she was decoding for them. A lot of times they would sink into a deep and long chatter.

None of the cybertronians that were present treated her like a slave or posed as superior being (save for Greenogance, though not in a rude kind of a way).

To Amanda this place became more welcoming and cozy by each passing day and as much as she might hate to admit, but it started to more and more feel like home, even more so than the base where she previously lived.

Amanda was only some steps away from the entrance to the kitchen, but almost fell on the ground once she realized, that Crosshairs was standing right in front of the entrance to the kitchen, supporting his weight on one side of the doorway.

Her eyes almost popped out from the shock and there were so many nasty things she was about to tell him, however she ended up not doing so, cause there were **way too many** and she didn’t know from where to start.

“You!” that was the only think Amanda managed to growl out at him.

Crosshairs answered with a bit of _confusion_? “What are you doing here?” he asked in a surprisingly calm manner.

“You, wha…” Amanda couldn’t find the right word to throw back at him and instead of all that she said “I am hungry and I think, that I’m going to get something to eat!” she replied in an angry sarcasm.

She quickly brushed passed him, before he could say whatever he wanted to. “Wait!” was the only thing she heard before her heart seemed to stop. Amanda was ready to choke on thin air, as she stood still, frozen on the spot, and the she stopped breathing completely.

“Eva” she said as tears rolled down from her eyes. For a mere second she wondered whether it might be an illusion she’s seeing due to lack of food in her system.

The girl in front of her was chewing on a food bar and didn’t even noticed any other presence around. As more and more tears came down on Amanda’s face, she kneeled down and took Eva’s pale, cold hands into her own “Eva it’s me, I…” she wasn’t able to finish that sentence, imagining what horrors her friend had gone through.

Amanda began to feel disgust in her insides. How could she not? Eva looked as if she’d been starving for a while and received a beating. What’s worse – Amanda was willingly writing down tech reports to the kinsmen of the abusers responsible for her friend’s poor state. And the worst thing so far – Amanda was secretly developing some kind of relationship with Greenogance. Even if he was an arrogant piece of scrap, there was no point denying it to herself any more.

Finally Amanda collected some courage and did something, that Eva once did for her in a dire situation. With shaky hands Amanda hugged Eva tightly, radiating some heat which finally broke the other girl back to reality.

Slowly Eva leaned into the warmth of her long lost friend and she hugged Amanda back in a bone crushing, breath stopping grip. She might be as thin as a skeleton, but she still had this much strength left, even when she was horribly broken, once again proving to Amanda the actual strength which Eva possessed.

Amanda made sure, that her green – haired friend ate her fill and afterwards she wanted to give her friend a shower, though her plan was brought to a halt by Greenogance.

“That’s not a wise idea dollface! Ya shouldn’t even be here in the first place, let alone take _her_ away. She’s Lockdown’s….” Crosshairs found himself unable to finish that sentence, but he tried again.

“She’s…” “Not a trophy” Amanda shouted at him, her eyes becoming glassy again. “Look! Just look at her! She has lost probably half of her weight. She’s so fragile that a harder touch might shatter her. She needs to wash and to sleep, or else…” she began to sob again. “Otherwise I won’t have anyone left.” She pleaded.

Amanda supported Eva’s weight a passed Crosshairs. She was ignorant of the fact, that Crosshairs might have just signed a death sentence, though, surprisingly enough, he didn’t seem to care. He felt better off risking his life so that he wouldn’t have to see his little human so hurt and twisted with negative emotions.


	7. Awakening of a long forgotten friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while sine I last posted, mainly due to my busy schedule at school.  
> In this chapter Amanda and Eva are doing their best to get familiar with each other again, after their own experiences with their captors.  
> You might have also noticed, that there are a lot of dialogue's in my story, which I fancy more than other type of text, however, if it's a bit too much, just say the word and I can try to make it shorter and put more text into describing scenes.  
> Hope yall enjoy it! :)

Amanda sat at the foot of her bed and silently watched as the blanket on top of Eva's body rose and sank with every breath. Her mind lingered on the horror images she saw, when she helped her friend to take a shower. Once the clothing had been peeled off, bruises, scratches and purple marks were revealed to Amanda's eyes - some of the injuries still fresh and bleeding. For a minute Amanda felt nause in her stomach and was on the verge of throwing up from the stench of blood which lingered all over her poor classmate, though she swallowed hard and endured this horrifying experience. 

Though she left washing with the soap for a later time, since it stung painfully on Eva's damaged body, but they somehow managed to wash her dark green hair. As they were washing out the shampoo, black water leaked down from Eva's hair and staining her back and face, thus making this whole washing adventure even more sickening.

Afterwards without a single word Amanda helped Eva to the bedroom and layed the broken girl down, who immediately fell asleep.

And so hours passed. At one point Amanda herself fell asleep and was later on woken up by light pokes on her cheek. "Wakey, wakey Mandy! It's breakfast time!" Eva joked with a weak smile. Amanda stretched out and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Then she helped Eva into a sitting position.

"Hey!" Amanda shyly greeted, unable to meet her former classmate's gaze. She was most surprised when Eva touched her chin and lifted it up, so that both girls attained an eye to eye contact. It was even more surprising to see Eva smiling? A truly genuine smile sat on top of Eva's lips. 

Eva leaned in and hugged Amanda as if both were about to be separated again. "Good morning lil Mandy" she chirped like a fairy and went back to her previous position. "well I can imagine that this is a pretty interesting blanket to look upon, but I can guarantee that it's more interesting with me!" Eva teased.

Amanda's face turned red once again hearing Eva's goofy humor. A smile invaded Amanda's face. Both girls stared at each other and suddenly began to laugh on Eva's half - failed attempt to joke about Mandy.

For the continuity of an hour both friends joked around and pretended as if they were back in the old days, in chemistry classroom, making fun of anything that came to mind. However, their chit chat was interrupted by the ever rough voice of Optimus Prime, who had somehow managed to _sneak_ up on them unannounced and unexpected.

It was clear to the two that he wasn't pleased, his mood probably as sour as the look upon those cold, shiny face plates of his. When he was completely sure of their full attention he began, "Have you no regards for your own life Amanda? If so, then you should have at the very least thought about the lives of others, lives that you endangered with your foolish actions!"

Amanda was a bit taken aback, though she understood, that Optimus was most likely angry about taking Eva away. However, knowing that there was still some kindness left in him, she was a bit angered, since all she did was provide food, shower and some sleep to her friend. It wasn't as if Amanda had hidden Eva somewhere or helped her escape. And since Optimus most likely was fully aware of Eva's terrible state, he had no right of being such a jerk right now, since all Amanda managed to do was help.

“What’s so bad about helping my friend huh?” she barked back.

“You don’t understand, do you?” Optimus huffed out. “You took away Lockdowns trophy from the place where she was supposed to remain until our talk was finished. It was Crosshairs duty to guard the femme and should’ve anything happened to her, he would’ve been held responsible for not watching her well enough.”

Amanda felt a painful pang in her chest, realizing the danger she had put the Greenogance through.

“You yourself could’ve been skinned alive, or in worse case – gotten my brother killed.” Anger still bubbled in his tone. “Lockdown is the last cybertronian to be reasoned with, as his policy is to shoot first and ask questions later, if there’s someone left to be questioned that is.

No more arguments came back from Amanda’s side, as she was fully aware, that she was the one at fault. And not only for endangering her _guardian_ , but also for not being able to repay Eva, for the saving during the attack on school.

She had been so desperate to do something, without even realizing, that she made the already fucked up situation even worse. Lost in her thoughts she missed some parts of Optimus’s never ending speech.

“…has guarded you, assisted you with the research, but in return you were ready to condemn him to death so that the other girl could get few hours of sleep.”

Even with the missing parts Amanda understood full well, that Optimus was talking about crosshairs all the time. Guilt overtook her eyes.

All this time Eva was watching the whole interaction from the sidelines and tried to pick up Amanda’s conflicted emotions. She had a hard time of completely understanding the way Amanda felt towards these cybertronians. She wasn’t completely sure whether Amanda felt sad for this Crosshairs or for the fact, that she got into trouble for helping.

Optimus finished his lecture with another huff and walked away, leaving both girls alone again.

An awkward silence swept over the room and Eva was very eager to break it.

“So, you just got your little ass scolded for allowing me to rain myself in the shower and playing the sleeping beauty for an hour or two?!” she asked rethorically.

Amanda began to smile weakly again. “Haven’t heard you use curse words for some time.” She giggled at her own comment.

“If this wasn’t a fricking robot apocalypse, I’d be shouting a big fat ‘ **Language** ’ loud and clear for everyone to hear, but since it is… fuck all that.” The statement pulled a long, delicious chuckle out of Eva, who was very surprised on seeing how bold her former classmate has become.

“You know what Mandy, I get that you aren’t exactly enslaved here among this group, but the thing which confuses me is this Crosshairs. Who is he? You seemed pretty sorrowful on the mentions of that name.” Eva wondered aloud for Amanda to hear.

“He’s been a sort of guardian and assistant whilst I was working on the reports, which I’ve been assigned to write. You know, like tech reports, very similar to the ones which we made now and then for the Rouge prince. Though he annoyed me to hell almost every day I really didn’t mean to get him hurt...” “Good Lord” Eva squeaked, cutting Amanda off midsentence. “So you and that cybertronian truly are a thing! OMG, I would have never thou…” “Eva No!” This time Amanda interrupted, her face heated up and red like a tomato.

Eva only snorted back. “Yeah sure, and I’m a belly dancer. The truth is written all over ya so don’t deny it. Though I’m more curious about how come you’ve changed your allegiance. As far as I can remember, the last time we both encountered them together, save for yesterday, they nearly killed us. The only reason for our survival was our knowledge, which they forced us to give up in exchange for our lives, thus gaining a way to destroy Underground - the only resistance left.”

Amanda’s brain didn’t work fast enough as she took some time thinking back on what the actual question was. Slowly rethinking what Eva just said, she realized, that the whole speech shouted one particular word – traitor. It was bad enough when she herself thought that way about her actions, but hearing it from her best friend and only supporter, she truly felt disgusted with herself.

By the time Eva realized what she had just spoken, a tear was already rolling down Amanda’s cheek, which was harshly brushed away.

“I’m sorry Mandy!” Eva sighed sadly. “I simply had it rough for these past few days. Lockdown isn’t exactly the most compassionate being on the planet and…” she suddenly trailed off. Tears began to also prick at Eva’s eyes.

“It wasn’t easy for me to do it either. After all, we both had to go against our promise of dying so that we would still be here. Alive.” Eva paused and took a deep breath to allow her brain a bit more oxygen.

“I did it because I was afraid Mandy, afraid that my life was over even before it has really started, no matter how stupid it is. I just…” “It’s ok Eva. You don’t have to explain anything. It isn’t my nor anyone else’s place to judge your actions.” Amanda assured to calm her friend.

“As for that cybertronian, Crosshairs. He truly is a pain in the neck up to the point where I began to call him Greenogance, so that I could annoy him back.” The sudden change of the topic lightened the mood in this grim atmosphere, thus in a way relieving them both from any kinds of thoughts related to their _slavery_.

“You know, when I woke up after that attack I learned that Crosshairs had thrown a cogwheel at me and I slept for a very long time until I managed to wake up. They even began to think, that I might’ve died at some point. Thought that they would torture me to get information about the Rogue prince, maybe even teared apart limb by limb, but I was most surprised when they only asked some questions and would make me write down the reports. Even more shocking was the fact, that they got me my own private space, as much as they could offer, that is, not to mention, that they fed me well and assisted me with whatever I needed whilst I was working for them.”

Eva could only listen in stony silence. _How envious I am of you Mandy_ , she thought, but quickly turned back attention to the other girl’s story.

“…To be honest, these cybertronians could be even described as ‘humane’. They healed my wounds and allowed me to recover from them for as long as it would take, with one of them checking me medically to make sure I’m ok. And most importantly – they never treated me like a slave. Here I felt like a part of a team, a group with a common goal, a family. As wrong as it might be, but here it felt more pleasant than at Rogue prince’s service.”

Amanda recited her fondest memories of the time she had spent with her captors, relieving some of the earlier tension between the two.

Seeing Amanda’s sparkling eyes it was clear to Eva, that both – her friend and the cybertronian, shared a bond, which was unlikely in her eyes, but a lot better than her own toxic _relationship_ with Lockdown.

“You got very lucky with you’r captors Mandy, though I couldn’t exactly say the same about Lockdown. Not that I was tortured into madness or somethin’, It’s just that Lockdown isn’t really your charity type of a guy, not to mention he’s short on patience.” said Eva sadly, contrasting her story with Amanda’s.

“He was especially fond of tracing his hook down my back whenever he deemed me disobedient, as means to keep me in line.” That would explain the barely visible lines on Eva’s back, which were most likely the healed up scars of Lockdown’s brutality.

“Just don’t cry on me Mandy. I’ve always been used to going through deep shit so in a way I’m used to it. The thing that messes with my head is the fact that at some extremely rare times Lockdown seems weird” Eva trailed off confusing Amanda as well.

“Weird in what kinda way?” Amanda asked.

Eva thought for a moment, as if trying to remember some important details from the past, before she spoke again.

“There were those moments where he acted like the boys from our class, however, instead of pulling my hair and pouring cold water all over me, at one instance he forbade me to put on my shirt after it got dirty with energon or something like that, but at another time I had to sit on his lap and write my reports at his quarters whilst he was doing some mechanics on the insistence, that he might need my help in identifying some details.”

As soon as Eva was done Amanda noticed, that her friend’s demeanor had changed when it came to talking about cybetronians. There was no disgust, no anger, no hate laced in her words. It was closer to the way in which Amanda described her own captors, save for the fact that Eva had it harder, yet she still looked resilient in a way and even a bit optimistic.

For a second Amanda had the crazy thought, that Eva might’ve fallen for Lockdown, but she quickly erased the thought to avoid further awkwardness and confusion. Instead, she wondered more about how close Eva felt to her captors.

“So you slept in his, that is, Lockdown’s quarters huh?” Amanda half asked, half wondered out aloud.

Eva laughed at this. “Haha, that was a good one Mandy! But no, I didn’t, nor I wish to. I got a whole room for myself which also served as my workplace, however it was heavily monitored by Lockdown, so privacy wasn’t a thing for me. Also, I was fed only as much to keep me alive and I was given only 5 hours of sleep daily. Not the best or the healthiest regime, if you ask me.” Eva joked at the end.

“The best thing, on the other hand, was when he returned from his hunts and I got a glimpse of some exotic environments, even if it was just a view for a split second it was more to me than all my time in that bloody room combined. Of course, on these occasions I mostly had to stich Lockdown up right away, which meant less time to spend on those boring reports.” “We can agree on that one!” Amanda added.

Afterwards the girls chatted some more of their unusual adventures, until Eva’s stomach growled loudly, signalizing the emptiness inside of it. “Right. I guess my tummy is reacting to those lovely food bars from yesterday. It has never gotten so much food as it did yesterday.” Eva said awkwardly.

“Well in that case breakfast it is then!” Amanda chirped and went over to her closet to pick up ripped jeans, black boots and a crop top for Eva, since her previous clothing wasn’t wearable anymore.

With excitement and enthusiasm both girls left to fill their bellies with whatever delicious thing they’d be able to find.


	8. Departure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been some time again.  
> So this chapter will be longer than the usual chapters. Took me some time to make changes in it as I'm changing the story line and now it'll be a little longer than I planned it at first.  
> I have also decided to try my best and include scenes going on around Eva not just Amanda.  
> In this chapter some things will surface up which will ultimately put the friendship of Amanda and Eva to the test.  
> Read on to find it all out!  
> Feel free to comment if ur up for it;)

After a decent meal both girls walked back to Amanda's room. Though after a short conversation they were both interrupted by Hot Rod’s voice box, which announced that Optimus and Lockdown are waiting for them in the _living room_.

The girls quickly collected themselves and headed out right away in order to not cause any more issues, considering, that Optimus wasn’t pleased with Amanda’s kind hearted actions, whilst Lockdown was rarely pleased with anyone.

On their first few steps Amanda quickly noticed lots and lots of new facial plates trafficking around the corners and hallways of the base. There were cybertronians of both genders, male and female, all appearing to be busy and rushing around them.

Occasionally the humans would receive some burning stares from other cybertronians, both passers-by and onlookers. Not that cybertronians weren’t used to seeing humans around nowadays, though these newcomers for certain weren’t used to these kind of sights, or so it seemed.

Some looks were filled with utmost arrogance, staring down the fleshy _aliens_ as if observing lesser lifeforms. Others were simply curious to see something else that wasn’t exactly metal-made. But the most lot of them were curious to know – _why on earth were these humans waltzing around so freely like they own the place?!_ Nevertheless, each stare would only last for a single second, since in the next one they went back to their own business. Regardless of these stares, the girls kept up their pace to match Hot Rod’s strides.

In good ten minutes they were at their destination. Whilst approaching it was possible to make out the rough voices of Lockdown and Optimus. They seemed to be discussing some kind of a deal, since Amanda picked up a part of their conversation.

“…then so be it. I’ll get my metal heads to work at once. As for the Nightshade – it’s been fully completed thanks to **my** human and ready for initiation.” Lockdown stated. “However, afterwards I’m taking the tech intel, weapons, shields or whatever they have created – all of it is mine. The Earth is yours, though I’m not making any promises about leaving or not returning!” he demanded.

“Deal!” Optimus spoke for the first time since Amanda and Eva entered the space, thus most likely sealing some pact.

_What do you mean – Earth will be yours_ , Amanda wondered, but had no time to think of it any further.

It should be noted that both cybertronians were sitting on carved thrones, each made of some dark grey, rock – looking material. Optimus’s throne was carved with some ancient, possibly cybertronian runes, whilst Lokdown’s had monstrous skeletal carvings and what seemed like actual bones for decoration.

Eva’s body became tense upon seeing Lockdown and when he finally looked at her she even flinched and averted her gaze to the ground in order to avoid his threatening green optics. Optimus on the other hand looked more formal, with a clear intension to converse not to torture somebody’s mind with a devilish grin.

“Welcome, both of you! “Optimus acknowledged their presence.

“We have many important things to discuss so pay close attention, for this kind of conversation won’t take place again!” he spoke seriously, yet not harshly.

“About an hour ago Megatron arrived from Metrocore (a large territorium in Russia which is now the _capital_ of planet Earth) and informed us that Empress Quintessa is planning to detonate a seed in order to collect more transformium, however, the trouble is that the Rogue prince has somehow learned of it and threatens to make a full scale war with his newly forged weapons capable of seriously damaging and even deactivating cybertronians!” said Optimus.

Amanda’s face was covered by a shocked expression. This was definitely news to her. She wasn’t sure whether to be more horrified of Quintessa’s genocide or relieved that the Underground was finally going to strike and in case of victory the world be finally rid of this tyranny. _And Greenogance?_ Her inner voice asked sarcastically, though Amanda did her best to ignore it completely. After all this was the main goal, the reason why she still existed, _or is it_ , the voice kept pestering her.

Eva stood right besides Amanda and looked completely unfazed by this information. From afar it looked as if this was an old news to her since she showed no emotion nor reaction when presented with the fact. Her façade was rather blank and bored, as if impatiently waiting till this session would be over.

She was preparing to say something, but kept it to herself as Optimus continued after a moment of silence. Apparently he was expecting for them to take some time until the information sinks in.

“We are ordered to collect the Broken and depart to a mother ships, where we shall take residence until, as you humans say, the tides are turning. And this is where the two of you come in. You will be accompanying us and advising us on the possible actions of Rogue prince and if needed, you will be fighting against him. Those are the conditions, and in return you will be protected and live comfortably on the mother ship with whatever necessities you need!” Optimus announced. This time there definitely was a need for some time until the information would sink in, however not because it wasn’t understandable, but due to the things which he asked of them.

“Wait. You…you actually want us to betray our own kin just so it wouldn’t prevent a mass murder?” Amanda gasped out.

“No, that’s not the major issue.” Lockdown intervened. “Whilst the rebels attack they will be thirsty for our energon and won’t differ a warmachine from a civilian. Despites our capabilities of _transforming_ , as you have seen us do it, not all are able to weaponized themselves for protection, thus our mission is to insure their safety by stopping Rogue prince before he takes action.” Lockdown explained. However, this reasoning wasn’t any better, even worse considering that they have to safe-keep cybertronians while at the same time humans are used as slave labor for them.

_How sick can you be to make us do such things_ , Amanda wanted to say, but thought better of it, tears threatened to flow from her eyes, but she managed to contain them with the last bits of her strength. “Still, even if we accept, there is no way that we can help.” Amanda finally found courage to speak. Eva stood unmoving in silence.

“I mean, whatever we knew we already told you and none of it is related to the Rogue prince. Well not directly, those are just tech reports.” she reasoned. But Lockdown only smirked down at her.

“Only tech reports you say?” he questioned rhetorically, taunting the girl. “About you it certainly is true, but the same couldn’t be said of Eva now, could it?”

Amanda was dumbstruck. _What the hell is he talking about_ , she wondered. But upon turning her head to the left she noticed that Eva was sadly staring at the floor and refused to meet her friend’s gaze. Amanda’s eyes widened as the realizations hit her hard. All of it greatly amused Lockdown.

“She didn’t even tell you, did she?” he kept taunting her. “She didn’t tell you that she was the _actual_ commander of that place which we attacked those two months ago. Nor has she, probably, revealed that she knows some intel on the Rogue prince’s inner circle, hmm!” he continued.

Amanda could only stare intensely at her supposed best friend in hurt and disbelief. She found it hard to believe that Eva, her savior, her classmate, her best friend would hide this kind of information from her. _Why so surprised huh? Why would she give you a vital information when you so easily tangled yourself with a cybertronian in mere 2 months?!_ Her inner voice whispered. Still, the truth stung deep.

“It doesn’t matter!” Optimus broke the silence once again. “The important thing is whether you accept the conditions. So what will it be?” he asked.

“Kay, I’m good with it. Not that there’s much of a choice.” Eva murmured the last part as quiet as possible in a monotone voice. Amanda only nodded her head and refused to meet either of the cybertronin optics and Eva’s guilt – filled gaze. She also didn’t notice how Lockdown rose up from his magnificent seat and nodded for Eva to follow. She didn’t notice the minor fear which began to pollute Eva’s expression, nor did she took note of Eva’s silent apology, which she barely whispered out when passing by her best friend.

When Hot Rod escorted Amanda back to her room so that she could collect her belongings, the girl was still drowning in her own thoughts, particularly in Eva’s position and Rogue prince. Truth be told, she began to realize that she knew absolutely nothing of the people around her, nor the person for whom she worked. All she now knew was that the Rogue prince is determined to save people from that massacre and that her best friend turned enemy informant had lied.

Seeing the doorless doorway of her room Amanda angered rushed passed Hot Rod and began to search for a duffle bag. She managed to find three of them and began to collect her clothes and threw them harshly into the bags.

Amanda swiftly moved around, her anger bubbling up by her every move. Her hair were messy now and her eyes seemed to be throwing sparks everywhere. Her body soon heated up and the clothes of her body were now sticking to her sweaty flesh.

Hot Rod took a quick peek upon hearing something being ripped out of its hinges, which appeared to be the door of a shelf. “Dammit!” Amanda cursed and threw the door to some unknown direction. Unfortunately, it was Hot Rod’s direction and the door hit him straight over his chest plate. That was the final straw for her to understand how devastated she was on the inside.

Amanda slid down the wall, pulled her knees tightly to her chest and buried her face in them as she began to sob uncontrollably. She felt herself crumble under the weight of the world and hollowness seemed to overtake her.

She was startled suddenly by something cold and metallic wrapping around her small frame. _Right, I threw that door at Hot Rod_ , she reminded herself, feeling even more terrible now.

“Hot Rod look I’m sorry…”, Amanda looked up, however instead of the French – accented cybertronian she was now looking at Greenogance with a sympathetic – looking expression written all over his facial plates. “You? I…where…wha…” she herself wasn’t sure of the particular sentence she was so desperately trying to form. More like those were three different sentences sewn up in one mess.

Amanda took a quick look and noticed that Hot Rod was nowhere in sight. It was just her. Her and Greenogance, that is.

“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since that last time when we argued in kitchen and look, I really…”, Amanda trailed off noticing something odd about the green cybertronian. When she looked at his chest plate, she was horrified to see a large, deep gash with energon dripping out from it and some sparks setting off.

“Oh my God, what happened to you?” she questioned him in a worried tone whilst taking him by the metallic arm and leading to an armchair, where she tried to push him down to sit. All her previous emotions seemed to have gone somewhere down the drain as she ran around her room looking for some tools to close the wound.

“Ya might’ve guessed that by taking Lockdown’s…” Crosshairs quickly stopped himself from saying the word trophy, knowing full well how easily Amanda would return to crying out all of her body fluids.

“Due to helping out yer friend and taking her away at my watch made Lockdown a little bit, let’s say, _grumpy._ And to went out his anger he ruined my chest plate with that darned hook of his. Let him be damned for scratching my beautiful color off!” Crosshairs added the last part in an attempt to humorize the situation, which surprisingly worked as Amanda allowed a weak smile brush past her lips for one short moment.

Amanda marched over to the armchair and began to work on the wound. The first thing she did was to find the exact source from where the energon was leaking out. She proceeded with caution in order to not make any more damage with her shaky hands. Next she carefully looked for the source of the small, yet annoying sparks which occasionally hit her at the fingers making her jump a little. It was probably the hardest part of the whole surgery, as there were very small wires, that were damaged and with the leaked energon were producing mini electric shocks.

She was almost done with the middle layer of Cosshair’s chest plate when suddenly the tears again began to stream, not that she cared for a possibility of dehydration right now. “I’m sorry!” She managed to whisper instead, her face filled with shame and utter self – loathing.

“Ah, don’t mention it.” Crosshairs threw back casually and leaned against the armchair making it creek a little in the process. “It could’ve been a lot worse. Knowing Lockdown’s policies this thingy is merely a scratch so save yer tears for some later date.” He said and used his Greenogance voice near the end of that sentence.

Oh how Amanda had missed that voice. Seemed like ages had passed since she last parted from him in that kitchen.

To seal the wound completely she took a blow torch to heat up the metal and then press it together with her tools, desperately trying to do her best on getting rid of the ugly traces from Lockdown’s hook.

“Why isn’t your wound closing on itself? As much as I know of cybertronian anatomy, you can repair great damages that have been done to your bodies.” Amanda wondered out aloud whilst finishing off her work.

Crosshairs was amused with the human’s curiosity and hummed in satisfaction. “You are well informed of our bodily functions dollface. And yes, you are right. Normally my wound would repair on itself in no time, but unfortunately Lockdown has dirty tricks up his arsenal. That hook is basically his favorite tool, might as well get married to it.” Amanda cringed on his sarcasm trying to picture Lockdown’s _special relationship_ with his hook.

“The point here is that he has enhanced it greatly with some sort of acid, or so I think, which does more damage to the transformium than a usual weapon.” He recited in annoyance thinking back at the ruthless bounty hunter.

Amanda nodded and collected all her tools on a nearby table. She found a fabric and began to clean them all the while being under the watchful optics of the Greenogance. He took note of each and every movement she made without missing a single flinch of a muscle. He took in her shape and tried to guess her thoughts by her face expression alone.

At one point Crosshairs noted that his processor has been occupied by Amanda a bit too much to his liking, especially at this particular moment, however he justified these actions by telling himself that there’s nothing else to do in this room. Nothing else to occupy his processor with.

“Who made ya cry so hard earlier? Ya seemed very devastated to me.” He suddenly inquired.

Amanda was about to respond with a plain it’s nothing, but changed her mind, knowing full well that there’s literally no one else to whom she’d want to tell of her hurt (not even to Eva right now as she was the cause of them). Not that Greenogance will tell it to anyone (she rather hoped than was certain of it), plus it would take some weight off of her shoulders.

She recited the whole incident starting from the information provided by Optimus and finishing with the secrets her best friend never bothered to tell her in like four years long time. The cybertronian was kind enough to not torture her with questions. Instead he asked her to polish his chest plate, which Amanda refused with a playful pout.

In the next few hours Amanda busied herself with her stuff. In the end there were two duffle bags filled only with clothes. Another one filled with her cosmetics and beauty products (she had a hard time explaining their importance to Cross, as he insisted that Amanda was too pretty to be using all that stuff – a comment which made her blush heavily.) The last bag was filled with some other last minute clothes and the leisure stuff – mostly books.

When she was finally done Greenogance forced her to lay down on the bed and take a nap stating that he could clearly see her exhaustion without using a scanner. However, Amanda had a hard time falling asleep as she would twist and turn which ultimately led crosshairs to one final solution – he lay besides her and held her still in his strong, hard arms, being extra careful not to do any harm to her relatively small body. In time she stilled and fell asleep.

When the time finally came Crosshairs carried her and her luggage to a ship, which brought them to the humongous mothership. He proceeded in carrying Amanda to her assigned private room, which had a door with a room code. She’ll probably love this, Crosshairs noted to himself, allowing a smile to appear on his face plates. He gently lowered her down on the soft bed and pulled the covers over her double checking whether her whole body had been covered.

Finally, he left the room and went to look where he himself would be residing.

* * *

Eva had a very hard time keeping up with Lockdown’s long strides, however she didn’t dare fall behind in fear of a possible punishment. Not that she was scarred of him at the moment, it was rather taking a precaution to avoid a _possible_ ugly outcome. Her previous experiences of the savage bounty hunter’s patience wasn’t optimistic, so she did everything in her power to avoid all bad possibilities of getting hurt over unimportant, stupid matters such as not walking fast enough.

In about twenty minutes they were back on Lockdown’s ship and he ordered the remaining crew to pack up. The same order was given to me. In no time I rushed to my room and began to think of a place where to even put my stuff, which was mainly tools and my work tablet. The problem however was solved soon enough as one of the crew members, Axor brought her a metal box which transformed itself into something similar to a traveling suitcase.

Eva thanked him and the cybertronian merely nodded before leaving to do his own business.

It didn’t take her long to pack her stuff, not that there was much to begin with. She carefully packed her tools for the weapon making, as well as for medical care. Next she packed her scanners and some unfinished reports. Only when all her work things were packed she dared to pick all of her clothing that was still wearable and on top of that she put the few remainders she had from the day of attack two months ago.

For a long time she struggled with closing this marvel of engineering since there were no buttons or handles, or zippers to close this thing. She pushed it from all sides, she tried to extract some lid from a corner, but it appeared there was none. Out of annoyance she kicked at the box furiously “Close already you stupid thing!” she growled. Eva found herself speechless as the box reacted to her command and actually closed. A handle extended from the top similarly to a _normal_ suitcase.

_Well that was quick_ , she thought sarcastically and grabbed the handle to drag it along with her. On her way about three or so crew members bumped into her souring her mood even more if that was even possible.

Eva wasn’t exactly sure where she should go so she went to the main deck where Lockdown was most likable to be at. Luck was on her side as there she found him waiting impatiently. She had a hard time reading his emotions, though she was quite certain that Lockdown was angry. But if so then he didn’t show it nor made any notion to it. Instead he ordered to follow him again.

Apparently whilst Eva was having a hard time with her suitcase the ship had docked on the mothership and as the door opened she was met with a wondrous sight. Hundreds of cybertronians were freely walking about the ship. It all reminded her of some futuristic robot city rather than an aircraft. To her it looked at the very least ten, probably even more times larger than Lockdown’s own vessel and definitely more crowded.

As she passed by she noticed the various frames the cybertronians had taken for themselves as well as some new colors, which she had never ever seen before on any other cybertronian. So taken by the sight of the crowded space that she failed to notice Lockdown’s intense staring session on her.

“Let’s keep moving. I didn’t bring you here so you could take a vacation trip.” He finally popped Eva’s bubble of curiosity. He began to walk purposely with long strides so that she’d be more motivated to catch up on him. However, the search for a room wasn’t a short one and in the first ten minutes Eva already got tired from dragging the metal box along with her. She began to fall behind more and more until Lockdown noticed in about the next six or seven minutes. He huffed loudly and cursed himself for not simply asking for the room he had been looking for. Annoyed with the weak and completely energy – drained feme he strode over to her. “Keep moving”, he growled at her. Somehow it worked and Eva found small amount of strength somewhere deep down, most likely generated by the fear of his wrath.

In total it took Lockdown about half an hour when he finally found the room. He angrily entered the password and walked inside not bothering to wait on a huffing and puffing Eva who could barely drag her feet any further.

As soon as she was in the room she fell down on the bed and would’ve fallen asleep right away if it wouldn’t be for Lockdown pushing her harshly out of the bed. In surprise she didn’t have time to react and she hit her head and her right elbow against the floor. Her head was throbbing now and greatly dulled her senses. Lockdown barked something to her, however the only message she got from all that was that she’ll have to sleep on an armchair at a further corner of the room.

Eva staggered to her bedding, tripping twice in the process, pulling out a sneer from Lockdown. But she payed no attention whatsoever to it since her only objective right now was to take some rest. She relaxed her muscles against the armchair and quickly fell into a deep dreamless slumber. Though it didn’t last long as in about some three hours (for her standards she had planned to wake up only the next morning) she was shaken up by Lockdown who forced her to clean up his body from waist up.

When Eva rubbed the sleep out of her eyes she noticed that his upper half was covered with a black substance greatly resembling oil. “It is oil.” Said Lockdown as if reading her mind. “I simply tried out my hook on some bots and made a little bit of mess from it and since out of boredom you’re already falling asleep, I thought you might as well do something useful and clean me up.” He said to her.

Her face held anger and annoyance, however she didn’t dare glare at him. Instead she huffed out her anger and started looking for something to clean him up with. She managed to get a bucket full of a cleaning substance which was really similar to water, however she failed to find a sponge or at least a substitute for it. “Don’t bother looking for a rag to clean me with. You’re already wearing one” Lockdown motioned to her tank top with his silvery finger. A horror washed over Eva’s face which was ignited even more when he threw a nasty smirk her way.

With shaky hands Eva removed the soft, electric blue piece of clothing, leaving her in a pair of white sneakers, black sweatpants and a black sports bra. She began to wash him and recalled the last time when he robbed her of her shirt. Under Lockdown’s gaze she felt so exposed and vulnerable that all she wanted to do was to curl up on that armchair, which Lockdown so graciously granted and cover herself with an extra layer of a blanket, to avoid being scorched by those toxic green optics.

When Eva finally got to his head and facial plates she had to lean over as walking behind him wasn’t an option. She struggled with the task, but told herself that it’ll soon be over. Unexpectedly a hand wrapped around her waist whilst she wasn’t paying attention and with a smooth movement Lockdown had dragged the femme on his lap. “This should be easier.” Lockdown said in a monotone voice.

_For who exactly?_ Eva thought angrily, but swallowed whatever insults she was about to throw his way. It was definitely **not** easier as she had to make a stretch for the cleaner. Not to mention that all this time Lockdown was holding an arm around her waist which restricted some of the femme’s movements.

Eva was finally done and went to put the bucket back in place. When she got back Lockdown was still sitting and his gaze would again follow her as she walked to her bed. Before she even got to sit down her action was interrupted by Lockdown’s harsh voice. “Come over here! You’ll sleep besides me.” He ordered. “Yeah right, you wish.” Eva barked back and began to make a comfortable sleeping place for herself.

She didn’t hear Lockdown getting up from the bed, only squealed as he picked her up and threw her over his hard shoulder. Something sharp pierced Eva’s flesh as the cybertronian carried her to the large bed. He simply threw her down on the bed and crawled in himself. His final act was to drag her body to his and wrap one arm around her to which Eva greatly protested and screamed to let go. Though she soon understood that he won’t be changing his mind about the position so she simply put up with it.

After some time, Eva began to shiver as the coldness overtook her. “Could’ve at least given me a blanket you bastard!” she whispered at him angrily and allowed a tear to slide down her cheek. Surprisingly soon she felt warmth and stopped shivering, however it wasn’t because of a blanket or the change in room’s temperature. In fact, the warmth was coming from Lockdown himself and as much as she hated the idea she pushed herself closer to him snuggling deep into his embrace. It didn’t matter that her torturer was sleeping besides her, now she only cared about his warmth.


	9. The Council of Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello yall!  
> The chapter 9 is out! The time has finally come to discover a little bit more of the events of the past. In this chapter I'll be introducing the mysterious Rogue prince and a little bit of a history of his actions agains the cybertronian invaders. There will also be the introduction of new charachters, some of whom have died in the Transformers movie franchise, but in my little universe they are alive and well.  
> Warning, that more to the end there will be some disturbing scenes, which will include, some blood and gore, and a couple of dead people, so heads up.  
> Hope yall enjoy this chapter! ;)

By the time Amanda had woken up the room was filled with complete darkness, for there weren’t any light coming from the single window, located perpendicular to the bed, making Amanda think that the ship must be very high up in the air. Her eyes aimlessly wondered around trying to get used to the dark space, however there wasn’t much of success in the action.

“How miserable ya must be, unable to see a damn thing in the darkness…dollface!” a voice startled Amanda from some unknown direction. Though she was most certain about to whom it belonged to.

“You don’t see me for one day and you already start missing me up to the point where you’re stalking me in sleep?!” She barked back with as much sarcasm as she could offer, which greatly amused the Greenogance. Instead of replying he stalked closer to her, a fact she noticed only when the bed sunk in under his weight.

“It’s still beyond me to understand how such a weak species as yours is going to overthrow the might of cybertronians, ya know. Even with that prancing bully which yall have elected as your _prince_.” He continued to irk at the girl’s nerves, that still hadn’t healed after the whole secrecy trauma. At this Amanda got so mad that she didn’t know with what to start. In those two sentences he had insulted her on her species level by calling her weak, he had trash – talked about the only person on the planet who is trying and might successfully avoid a mass slaughter and misunderstood the fact that _Rogue prince_ is only a nickname to keep that person’s identity a secret. Taking into account that Amanda has always preferred perfection in every field and her desperation to think about something else than Eva, even such a small matter than misunderstanding the concept of the _Rogue prince_ made her brains boil.

She shot up only to collide with his hard, metallic chestplate and fell back rubbing her forehead with a scowl upon her face. Now she felt even more dumb on the level of her species. Crosshairs chuckled at her failed action, whatever it was supposed to be and his laughter only got stronger when Amanda hit him at the very spot where she had smashed her forehead and ended up only hurting her fist.

“You truly are a weird species.” He said in amusement, making Amanda blush and burn with embarrassement. “Though not everything about you is all bad” he said whilst he brushed his fingers through Amanda’s dark brown hair, that were now reaching her waist. Instinctively yet not intentionally his other hand rested against her nape and he pushed her closer towards him.

Amanda was too shocked to even protest or argue back. Maybe she didn’t even want to, but in any way she suddenly felt metal pressed against her lips. It was Greenogance…successfully kissing her and she did nothing to stop or break the kiss, instead her arms wrapped around his frame and she moved further to sit in his lap, her body pressed closely to his alien one. All rationality had suddenly disappeared from her head and a feeling of warm pain filled her stomach, yet it wasn’t uncomfortable in any way.

* * *

Lockdown had never required sleep, however even cybertronians had to shut down their processors for a while or otherwise they’d burn up and eventually would be damaged which even might result into a coma like state in order for it to be repaired. In a certain way it resembled the human aspect of sleeping, though they had no need for that many hours.

When he crawled away from the small fleshy frame of _his_ human companion and looked back, Lockdown took his time inspecting her up close. He had previously never done it nor had he thought about such an unimportant matter, however suddenly his full attention was fixed to it.

He found it exotic that no other human (in his knowledge) possessed a dark green colored hair complimented by her greyish eyes, that were changing color to blue and green in certain light (though he wasn’t fully sure about which was the _actual_ color of her eyes out of those three). He touched and pressed the skin of her left arm and was taken aback by how soft and _welcoming_ it was. He entangled one hand in her hair, whilst the other one went to explore her other parts. However, her skin had gone cold by this time and she was starting to stir. Suddenly Lockdown harshly gripped a handful of her hair and yanked it, maybe a bit too hard for his own liking, as he had no knowledge over how much his strength impacted on her.

Eva was forced up by the ache in her scalp and moaned out of discomfort. Opening her eyes, she met the sinister glare of Lockdown and all of a sudden she bolted up and backed away from him until she hit the head of the bed, and any further escape was blocked. Now there certainly was no need for other motivations to wake her up.

“Time to get up and get moving human!” he barked at her and tugged her by arm causing Eva to wince. “Today you’re going to tell the council everything that you know of the rebel leader. Make sure to pretty up yourself.” He grinned in amusement with himself.

As Lockdown left somewhere, Eva began to get herself ready. First she washed her face with some clean water (miraculously there was a bathroom involved in her _apartments_ ) and softly dried it with a towel. She brushed her long, dark – green hair and braided them in two French braids, so that they wouldn’t get much in her way. Next she selected ripped jeans, black n white wedge sneakers, and a black top to wear, though she went to change in the bathroom in fear of being walked in on by Lockdown or in worse case some other cybertronian.

Her final touch was a bit of makeup. No that she ever used it, but today she was just feeling like doing something else that would count as _out of the usual routine_. In the end she also decided to add some silver bling into her braids, solely for her own satisfaction. She carefully added the sparkling elements so that they wouldn’t destroy her unusual choice of appearance. Eva suddenly remembered how savagely Lockdown had woken her up this morning. “And here I was thinking he might have the slightest of goodness in him.” She wondered out aloud referring to cybetronian’s act of lending her his body heat or whatever that was he did to make her so warm.

The thing which greatly upset Eva however was the fact that she was almost a hundred percent sure, that she felt him stroking her hair and the action of almost tearing the hair from her scalp was merely so she wouldn’t take notice of his strange behavior.

Eva looked up in the mirror and saw that she had messed up her left braid a bit. She growled in annoyance and threw it backwards. “There’s no way in hell I’m redoing this!” she told herself whilst exiting the living room, where Lockdown was already waiting near a table, his metallic frame leaned against a wall and a plain expression on his facial plates. She was quick to take notice of the food which now occupied the table.

“Thought you’d never stop babbling to yourself in there. Might as well be in need of removing that door or you’ll be spending too much time in that place. A time which could be used on more useful things.” He teased.

Eva only threw a glare at him and began to munch on a protein bar. She decided to focus on her food rather than his monologue, mainly because on the inside she was burning with embarrassment, wondering how much did Lockdown actually hear.

After Eva munched down her breakfast, she collected her tablet and headed out with Lockdown to the hall where this meeting of the council is supposed to take place. Lockdown insisted on arriving three hours early, so that Eva can note down all the information on Rogue prince, as well as to prepare reports on those weapons, which Lockdown allowed to present for the council.

The council hall itself was huge, a lot larger than any other room she had ever seen on any ship. Seven large thrones stood at the end of the hall, all lined up in a row. Unlike the one’s which she had scene at Optimus’s base, these thrones were heavy – looking and very simple, decorated only with a symbol, that was engraved at the back of it. Otherwise they seemed the same. However, even with the large thrones there was still a plenty of space. On the opposite side of the throne line was a wall, where the projector would hit whatever information Eva would connect with her tablet.

She was fidgeting on a large chair at a corner. It was a pain to note down every little detail, that was stored in her memory. Lockdown’s intense gaze was set on her without a hint of boredom. It seemed, that he enjoyed to simply eye her, as if he was making a research on the human of every aspect he could think of.

About 20 minutes prior to the meeting Lockdown left her alone there. Not that she needed anything from him, since she had already prepared the material. Though she had to admit, that she’d feel a lot more comfortable if Lockdown was there with her. To Eva his intense gaze had become something of a moral support in some twisted way. Even whilst she remained on Lockdown’s ship, her room was littered with cameras, so she had grown used to being watched and now being here alone made her feel _lonely_.

Eva’s chain of thoughts was interrupted by the opening sound of the metallic doors. As she quickly rose to her feet, in came the seven leaders of cybertronians, also known simply as the Seven. They were followed by other important cybertronians, among them was her best friend Amanda, who kept close to the green cybertronian.

The line of thrones was also filling. Starting from the left side there sat The Fallen, also known as Megatronus – most likely the eldest cybertronian on this ship. He was well known for being the first Decepticon and Megatron’s teacher, who for sure was more sinister than any other, surpassing even Lockdown. The next in line was Optimus Prime with his ever- lasting, plain expression on those shiny facial plates. After him sat the Megatron – Megatronus’s excellent student and another well – known sadist, however his facial plates were easily recognizable to Eva, as he paid quite some visits, whilst Eva stayed on Lockdown’s ship. Both Megatron and Lockdown were something like partners in crime to Eva. Then there was an empty throne, which was supposedly meant for Quintessa – the Empress of Earth’s colony and the elected leader for this council, as well as the only femme on the council. After the emptiness sat her Lockdown, looking as stoic as ever. Now Eva greatly missed his dark, twisted and never – ending attention, which she had loathed until this very moment. The next cybertronian to him was the mostly red and dark grey Sentinel Prime – an old acquaintance of Optimus Prime and Megatron, and the final cybertronian was Grimlock – a legendary warrior and arguably the strongest cybertronian on the ship when it comes to close combat (Eva was thankful to Lockdown, who informed her about the council members during those preparation hours). All the other cybertronians (and Amanda) were lining to the sides.

It took everyone about 10 minutes to settle down. Right after that Eva rose to her feet and cleared her throat, however as everyone’s optics stared at her, the words stuck in her throat. Thankfully she was saved by Optimus, who spoke first.

“Brothers! Today is important as we all are now preparing for a war, whether it be greater or lesser, we all need to be alert! Eva shall give you an important information on the _enemy_ , as well she’ll present some of their weapons, so that we know what we’re up against.” Optimus finished and nodded to Eva, who took it as her cue to begin a long monologue.

The _enemy_. Eva repeated that phrase in her head at least thrice before she was break out of her thoughts as sadness and feeling of treason overtook her.

Firstly, she activated her tablet, which allowed everyone to see the hierarchy branches of the Black Underground.

“As everyone here knows, the leader of resistance goes by the code name of Rogue prince – his real identity nor any other information of him is unknown to me, though the fact that he calls himself a prince not a princess makes mostly everyone believe that the Rogue prince is a _he_. Rogue prince has three agents, who operate under his direct orders. The most important one of those three is agent JJ, who builds whatever plan Rogue Prince tells him to do. Basically this is the person who controls all the action, as the Rogue prince only gives orders, whilst JJ makes them reality.” She took a deep breath and continued.

“The second important agent is the weapons master, also known as agent Suyu. This person has access to all the data of weapons and also is the one to register all captured cybertronians. Agent Suyu is known to be ruthless in action and according to the main base this agent has made several reanimated cybertronians to use against their kin.”

“Next we have the third agent, referred to as the _hangman_ by everyone. He is the military leader and has the control over all the forces of the Underground. He leads almost every mission and has never failed at any of them. He is the humanities strongest soldier and has quite a record on himself for deactivating cybertronians, many out of whom have been zombified by agent Suyu.”

Eva turned another page at her tablet.

“There is also another person who I’d like to mention, which some of you might now.” A picture of a woman was shown against the opposite wall of the throne line. “This is Darcy Tyril, a former agent of the Rogue prince and important one at that. She was executed on Empress Quintessa’s orders, since she wouldn’t yield any information even under torture. Her death was made in public in 2078 and for that the Rogue prince began to orchestrate direct attacks, out of whom the first one was launched only few days after the execution.” Eva scrolled another page.

“In total there were 5 attacks that year, whilst 15 more followed in 2079. In 2080 there were 30 attacks and one other which caused major casualties: the capture of about 10 cybertronians and the death…deactivization of 20 others.” Eva turned further to the next page.

“Alltogether in two years the Rogue prince succeeded in 50 attacks during which he was able to deactivate a total number of 114 cybertronians, whilst it is rumored that half the very same number of cybertronians have been captured, though I have no information to prove nor deny it.”

As she turned to the next page, her body began to slightly shiver and tremble. The next page was about the tragedy of 2081 – the last day of school and the last day for humanity.

“Finally there’s the… _events_ of 2081. After the devastation of 2080, the Rogue prince was more optimistic of a possible victory for the humanity. He was able to successfully land 9 attacks, deactivating about 34 cybertronians and capturing a fair number. However, after that…” bile rose in Eva’s throat as she began to remember _that_ day at school. _That_ day, when she had decided to wear her grandmother’s gifted lucky charm necklace for the first time. It certainly saved her from a tragic end.

“After the 9 attacks, an order was given to crush the humanity and so an attack was made on every living human, regardless of their gender, age or other type of traits. That was also the first time when the Rogue prince activated project _Daylight_ – a weapon, which can be used only once, resulting in heavy casualties to the cybertronians and thus also saving…getting some part of the human population to the secret bases.”

A tear slid down her face for the memory of all those people who died that day, though no one noticed due to the lights on the wall – a fact Eva was thankful for.

“His last attack was by the end of 2081, when the Rogue prince personally participated in a mission and managed to destroy a labor camp and save…release about 5000 prisoners as well as steal all the material from that camp. Ever since then there hasn’t been any other attack in these past three years, but according to the information given by the Optimus Prime, the Rogue prince is preparing for a war with the main goal to free the prisoners at Metrocore and possibly overthrow the Earth’s colonization.”

The air around her felt heavier with every passing minute. Sweat drops began to form on Eva’s body and few more unnoticed tears fell from her grey-green-blue eyes. She threw a glance at Amanda for the second time today and hoped to see…she didn’t even know what, as she was now telling vital information concerning humanities existence to the enemies of humanity.

Though Amanda was far away, Eva was able make out a glint of sparkle on her friend’s small, round face. Tears. Amanda was crying. Crying for her friends, mourning their loss, mourning her lying and treasonous friend.

It took Eva an immense strength to swallow the lump, which had formed in her throat out of self – disgust. Nevertheless, she continued her little performance by introducing some of the weapons. The whole thing took about six hours until it was finally over. By the time Eva felt mentally and physically exhausted and wanted nothing more than to fall down on her bed, go to sleep and never wake up again. As much as tempting the idea was, it didn’t happen.

On her way out she caught a glimpse of Amanda limping her way to the opposite direction, her back turned towards Eva. Even without seeing Mandy’s face, Eva was damn sure, that she was beyond sad and disappointed in her former classmate. In the end it might’ve been better that Eva didn’t see Amanda anymore for the remainder of time they’ll be spending on the ship.

Softly crying Eva entered her room and discarded most of her clothing, leaving on only her lingerie. She picked up a large white shirt with a picture of some anime character on it and crawled in bed, covering herself with her coat instead of a blanket. Her reason for this choice was because the coat had never been washed and it still had the scent of Eva’s body lotion, which reminded her of home, as she used to use it up to the point, where her nana used to pretend that she’s smothering.

It didn’t matter to her what time it was, she simply cried until she fell into a nightmareish sleep.

* * *

Hearing the tragedy of 2081, the slightest reference to it, Amanda became paralyzed. She stood there, next to Crosshairs and Bumblebee. Frozen. Her mind was frozen, her breathing was frozen, her heart was frozen. Her mind suddenly took a leap back in time. Back those three years ago.

Amanda sat at windowsill in the corridor, chatting to Martha – a supposed friend of hers. The subject of the conversation was the upcoming math test, due to which they were now waiting for the upcoming math - preparation lessons, that would start in due time. The bell rang. Amanda and Martha both jumped off from the windowsill in a sync and headed to their classroom, which was only few steps ahead. The teacher hadn’t arrived yet, so both girls kept chatting as they looked for an empty space, when suddenly a loud explosion shook the very foundations of the Southcare Higschool. Every student in the class felt the terrible impact the blast had on the air around them. In few seconds Amanda’s classmates rose up in panic and dashed out of the class, including Amanda’s supposed friend Martha. Another explosion went off and Amanda fell to the ground.

As Amanda opened her eyes again, a light blinded her view. She was in a room filled with cybertronians and on the front stood Eva…crying. Her tears were barely visible, but they certainly were there. At that point she understood, that she was back in the council hall and currently Eva had sat down on a chair at the opposite wall.

“Let’s go dollface!” Crosshairs said from her left.

Mindlessly Amanda began to walk like a string puppet, her course set on her private chambers. Her steps became sluggish and at some point she began to limp. Her mind unnoticeably slipped back to 2081.

Amanda opened her eyes and coughed very hard, thus burning her lungs. Everything around her was dusty and she was bleeding from her knees, right side of the ribcage, her right arm and head. She got out from a pile of rubble and crawled out of the classroom through a hole in the classroom wall. Once out she looked at the doorway and recognized Martha who lied there crushed under debris. Martha’s gaze turned upwards and met Amanda’s scarred ones. That’s exactly when Martha’s last breath left her and she died.

The 15 years old teenager limped through the destroyed hallway, every step she took was an immense pain. She stumbled upon something and fell into a pool of blood. She opened her eyes again and screamed her throat out, as right in front of her was the corpse of Richard – the boy on whom she had a crush on ever since her 5th grade.

In pure terror Amanda forced herself to get up and she limped further, but her legs gave in and she fell down onto the floor again. Tears were pricking at her eyes and she was crying like child, who had lost its mother forever. She screamed her last breath out, fearing her eventual demise.

Amanda woke up in her room with a loud scream, that probably was heard by everyone who passed by her room. She was sweating and her throat was sore from all the screaming. She rose and drank some water to calm her nerves. Nothing scared her more than having nightmares of her school again, not even the council of Seven could make her shake like this.

Somehow she fell asleep again. Back to her nightmares.

Amanda couldn’t walk, so she crawled like a dying animal. She managed to get out of the hallway, only to miss the view of stairs and to fall all the way down, damaging her body even more. Her head ached so bad, she thought that her skull might’ve been cracked. Slowly she crawled down another stairway, but this proved to be a grave mistake. She had reached the school’s administration now, which was now painted with red blood and reeked of death. It became too much for the girl and on the sight of a sliced upper half of a student she threw up then and there, emptying the contents of her breakfast on the floor. Somehow the action helped her and she was able to get up. Proceeding her way through the floor she did her best not to step on any of the bodies. Suddenly she heard loud screams coming from the headmistress’s office, where it seemed a lot of people had taken residence. The scream echoed through the whole floor and rang into Amanda’s ears, who shielded them with her injured palms. It didn’t help the slightest. The misery, the sorrow and the horror those screams represented made Amanda loose her mind and she began to scream herself as a means of muffling the screams of others.

_Amanda! Amanda!_ She heard a soft voice somewhere in distance. _Eva?_ Amanda thought.

“Amanda wake up!” Crosshairs roared whilst trying to shake the trembling girl awake. “Amanda!” he kept shouting. Finally, the girl broke out of the hellish nightmare and shot up, only to fall out of bed and dislocate her shoulder.

Crosshairs quickly brought her to Drift, who patched her up in a matter of minutes. He gave her some pain killers and offered something for sleep, however Amanda refused the latter.

The Green cybertronian brought her back to her chambers and layed back, whilst she stayed in his protective embrace. She stayed like this until the very late hours of night, when her body became so exhausted, that she fell asleep. Two hours later she woke up again, crying and clutching to Crosshairs, who ever so gently offered his comfort to her again. This time she was able to sleep more and thankfully, the nightmares didn’t bother her again.


End file.
